New ~ SPOT Satellite Phones
Seem reasonably priced. Anyone have one? Couldn't get the link to work.
Forum Discussion
I have had Global star for about 6 years. Poor reception is a thing of the past. It had nothing to do with the location of the sats, it was a technical problem with the sats that could not be fixed from earth.
A whole new constelation of sats is now up and running. Service is now very good. I live in Northern BC and have used my phone as far North as Fort St John with no issues.
When reception was poor, a person could use a sat availability program on the globalstar website. It predicted sat availability at a given location for three days. When service was at it's worst, I would get a few minutes at best of sat time one to three times an hour. Now I turn the phone on and if at sat is not there it is in a few seconds and lasts as much as an hour.
Used phones can be picked up for as little as $200. Cheapest package in Canada is $39 a month with 40 free minutes. Which is what I have as it is for emergency use only.
Also, the orbits are not on the equater, they swing above and below the border. I just checked one at the link below and it's orbit is as far north as the Northern end of Japan and as far south as the southern tip of Africa. The sats orbit allows for service from 70Deg North to 70Deg South.
http://www.n2yo.com/satellites/?c=17
A whole new constelation of sats is now up and running. Service is now very good. I live in Northern BC and have used my phone as far North as Fort St John with no issues.
When reception was poor, a person could use a sat availability program on the globalstar website. It predicted sat availability at a given location for three days. When service was at it's worst, I would get a few minutes at best of sat time one to three times an hour. Now I turn the phone on and if at sat is not there it is in a few seconds and lasts as much as an hour.
Used phones can be picked up for as little as $200. Cheapest package in Canada is $39 a month with 40 free minutes. Which is what I have as it is for emergency use only.
Also, the orbits are not on the equater, they swing above and below the border. I just checked one at the link below and it's orbit is as far north as the Northern end of Japan and as far south as the southern tip of Africa. The sats orbit allows for service from 70Deg North to 70Deg South.
http://www.n2yo.com/satellites/?c=17
